Tag: #medievalskates

Prikschaats is the Dutch name for a type of medieval skate that includes a spike at the toe. It translates to “prick-skate.” I’ve already written about prikschaatsen here and here. I also made a pair.

I made them out of part of a regular old 2×4 and some 3/8″ square bar stock (mild steel). The methods I used weren’t entirely historically accurate. The ordinary power tools and propane forge were analogous to medieval methods—the same workflow, with less soot and exercise. But I did use electric welding, which was definitely not available 500+ years ago, to attach the toe picks.

I’ve skated on them and they do work. After a bit of practice, I was able to skate by pushing with the toe picks. Since the blades are wide and flat (not hollow-ground like modern figure and hockey skates), they tend to slide sideways, which makes it difficult to push off an edge like modern skaters do. Skating on them feels more like walking than skating on modern skates does. For an intermediate step between pole-pushing and edge-pushing, this seems quite reasonable.

My prikschaatsen are featured in CIADC’s online member gallery!

This is a follow-up to my post on the Amsterdam skate, a skate dating to c. 1225 that was found in Amsterdam. In that post, I wrote about making the metal part. The skate also has a wood part, which this post is about.

Unfortunately, the wood part didn’t really survive its centuries in the ground, as you can see in this picture. I used the pictures of the Dordrecht skate to get a better idea of how it might have looked. And I tried to make it simple but structurally sound.

I ended up with a two-part design: a flat area for the foot and a block of wood to hold the blade. For wood, I used the leftover bits of a two-by-four. Pine lumber is not historically accurate (the skates were actually made from poplar and alder (Blauw 2001, p. 57)), but is easy to work with.

I used a band saw to cut out the footbed, which was inspired by my Buddy Snow Skate and the shape of my foot. The bottom piece, which held the blade, is a block from the remaining part of the two-by-four with a 3/8″-wide groove routed into the bottom for the blade to fit into and a bit of shaping done with hand tools. The holes for laces are just shallow cuts made with the table saw.

I glued the two pieces together with standard wood glue. To avoid water damage, I finished the skates with a modern lacquer.

Next, I have to grind the blade so it’s nice and shiny (and sharp!) and put the metal and wood parts together permanently. Then I can try them out on the ice.

Reference

Wiebe Blauw. 2001. Van Glis tot Klapschaats. Franeker: van Wijnen.

One of the oldest metal-bladed skates found to date was found in Amsterdam. It dates to around 1240 and consists of a metal bar wrapped around a chunk of wood. More about the skate, including pictures, can be found on schaatshistorie.nl. I’m working on reconstructing it using the equipment at CIADC. This post is about making the blade.

Based on the pictures, it looked to me like the blade was about one square centimeter, so I started with a piece of 3/8″ bar stock. I stuck it in the forge to heat it up and then, pounded away to get it into the shape shown in the pictures.

Making the blades turned out to be very easy despite my lack of experience. It makes me wonder whether the Amsterdam skate could have been made by an apprentice. It’s quite small—only about 20 cm long—and children are known to have made their own bone skates. Making metal blades would have been more difficult 800 years ago, because the nice bar stock that’s readily available today didn’t exist back then. The most difficult part was probably shaping the metal into the bar that was bent into the blade.

Next, I need to make the wooden base that connects the metal blade and the skater’s shoe. That will be part 2.